Method, system, and program product for allocating virtual universe customer service

ABSTRACT

Virtual universe customer service representatives axe cloned and assigned as a function of observing customer behavior, retrieving historical data and creating a customer profile Preferential subavatar assignment parameters are determined for a customer as a function of the customer profile, choosing a subavatar from a plurality of subavatars as a function of a correlation of a subavatar performance characteristic with the preferential subavatar assignment parameter and a store objective, and the clone is populated with the chosen subavatar Choosing a subavatar may comprise preferentially rating subavatars and determining an appropriateness threshold as a function of the subavatar assignment parameter, the performance characteristics and the stole objective. Some embodiments reset a threshold in response to time-in-queue or to repetitively observing customer behavior, retrieving customer data, determining a subavatar assignment parameter and choosing a highest-rated available subavatar meeting a revised threshold. Subavatars may comprise automated, customer service representative-controlled and jointly-controlled subavatars.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to managing customer servicewithin a Virtual Universe (VU) environment, and more particularly tomethods, systems, and program products for increasing customersatisfaction or revenue in a Virtual Universe by load balancing customerservice representatives in response to customer, service representativeand provider parameters or objectives.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A Virtual Universe (VU) is a computer-based simulated environment that auser may traverse, inhabit, and interact with other users within throughthe use of an avatars a graphical representation of the user oftentaking the form of a cartoon-like human though any graphic image may beutilized Many VU's are represented using three dimensional (3-D)graphics and landscapes and awe populated by many thousands of users or“residents,” often resembling the real world in terms of physics,houses, and landscapes. Other terms for VU's include metaverses,massively multiplayer online games, “3-D Internet” and Virtual World.

VU assets, avatars, the VU environment, and anything presented to a useras visual information comprise Universally Unique Identifiers (UUID's)tied to geometric data distributed to users as textual coordinates,textures distributed to users as graphics files (in some examples as aJPEG2000 file), and effects data Tendered by the user's client computeraccording to the user's preferences and user's computer system devicecapabilities. Many VU's are represented using three dimensional (3-D)graphics and landscapes and are populated by many thousands of users or“residents,” often resembling the real world or fantasy/fictional worldsin terms of physics, houses, landscapes and in interpersonalcommunications with other users Examples of large robust VU's andmassively multiplayer online games include SECOND LIFE® (SL) (SECONDLIFE is a trademark of Linden Research, Inc. in the United States and/orother countries), Entropia Universe™ (ENTROPIA UNIVERSE is a registeredtrademark of MindArk PE AB in the United States, other countries, orboth), The Sims Online™ (THE SIMS ONLINE is a trademark of ElectronicArts, Inc in the United States, other countries, or both), and There™(THERE is a trademark of Makena Technologies, Inc in the United States,other countries, or both). Such examples render and display detailed,large and complex graphic environments within which users may travel andparticipate as if a character in an expressionistic or fantasticalfictional world or within a somewhat realistic or representationalapproximation of real life (e.g. Second Life®).

In a VU, a user creates an agent which functions as the user's account,and upon which the user may build an avatar tied to an inventory ofassets the user owns in the VU and associated with the agent. VU's arealso commonly defined with respect to VU regions, virtual areas of landwithin the VU typically residing on a single server. VU assets, avatars,the VU environment, and anything presented to a user as visualinformation comprise Universally Unique Identifiers (UUID's) tied togeometric data distributed to users as textual coordinates), texturesdistributed to users as graphics files (for example as a JPEG2000 file),and effects data rendered by the user's client computer according to theuser's preferences and user's computer system device capabilities.

Service providers and corporate entities such as governmental andnon-governmental organizations, corporations and non-profit associationsgenerally establish a presence and engage users in various activities byacquiring a fixed virtual physical location within the VU, genericallysometimes referred to as a “store” and which may refer to any physicalspace acquired and monitored for user avatar occupation. Accordingly,commercial entities such as conventional retailers are increasingopening stoles in VU's in order to pursue retail sales and othercommercial activities, and wherein customer user avatars entering thestore are greeted and engaged by an avatar agent of the store owner,manager, salesperson or other customer service representative (CSR). Insome respects, VU stores offer a shopping experience similar to areal-life store experience, with a customer avatar engaging in extendedreal-time conversations, either through chat or other interactive textapplications or even through real-time spoken conversations. Thus, inone aspect, the VU shopping experience may offer advantages over othertypes of on-line shopping options, which generally offer much morelimited CSR representative engagement, for example during a retailtransaction process

However, in another aspect, the CSR avatar is only representative of areal-life CSR, and in some cases may not actually represent a human orthe undivided attention of a human More particularly, any given CSRavatar may or may not be actively managed or even representative of ahuman operator; a CSR avatar may in fact represent an automated computerdialog entity or “bot” instead of a human CSR. Bots are softwareapplications that run automated tasks, often performing structurallyrepetitive tasks at a much higher rate than would be possible for ahuman alone; for example, a bot may comprise an automated script thatfetches, analyses and files information from web servers at many timesthe speed of a human Bots may be implemented to emulate human activity,for example chat bots, are also used as organization and content accessapplications for media delivery, and still further applications will beapparent to one skilled in the art.

In one example, a human CSR represented by the avatar may be engagingmultiple users through multiple avatars, and thus any given interactionwith the CSR avatar may be either an automated (bot) or human-attendedinter action. Although bot CSR avatar agents may be acceptable to somecustomers, others may object to interacting with a bot and terminate anengagement when the automated nature of the bot becomes apparent, and inparticular if a bot cannot respond adequately to the customer orotherwise evidence the characteristics, attentiveness or perform thefunctions expected or a human CSR.

Problems also arise in meeting customer service demands in a VUenvironment For example, avatar customers in a VU store may outnumberavailable CSR avatars and/or supporting human operators, and delays ingiving service or meaningful attention to some users in a crowded storemay result in some users leaving the store before they have beenengaged, in a commercial or retail context perhaps including the mostimportant or profitable of the present customers and thus resultingdirectly in loss of profits or business opportunities. Prior art VUmanagement does not offer adequate solutions: computer systems andapplications are generally configured to process incoming data or tasksthrough first-in first-out (FIFO) or round-robin methods and systems,thus selecting and giving immediate focus to a task or customer avataron a random or time-dependent basis. This risks focusing limitedresources on lower priority customers at the expense of otherhigher-need or higher value customers who may leave the store withoutappropriate service within a timely manner.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Methods, services, programs products comprising code, devices andsystems are provided for allocating customer service representatives ina virtual universe, wherein a virtual universe store comprises anoriginal customer service representative avatar and a plurality ofsubavatars, each of the subavatars having a capability of the originalavatar and a divergent performance characteristic In response to acustomer avatar entering the virtual universe store and anunavailability of the original customer service representative avatar,the original customer service representative avatar is cloned andassigned to the customer avatar. Behavior of the customer avatar isobserved and historical customer data retrieved from a data store,further creating a customer profile from the observed behavior and theretrieved historical customer data and determining a preferentialsubavatar assignment parameter for the customer as a function of thecustomer profile. A subavatar is chosen from the plurality of subavatarsas a function of a correlation of the performance characteristic of thechosen subavatar with the preferential subavatar assignment parameterand a store objective, and the assigned clone is populated with thechosen subavatar, the populated clone engaging the customer avatar.

In another aspect, methods are provided for producing computerexecutable program code, storing the produced program code on a computerreadable medium, and providing the program code to be deployed to andexecuted on a computer system thereby providing a computerinfrastructure being operable to perform one or more of the methodand/or process elements described above, for example by a serviceprovider who offers to implement, deploy, and/or perform functions forothers. Still further, an article of manufacture comprising a computerusable medium having the computer readable program embodied in saidmedium may be provided. Such program codes comprise instructions which,when executed on the computer system, cause a computer system to performone or more of the method and/or process elements described above.Moreover, systems, articles and programmable devices configured forperforming one or more of the method and/or process elements of thepresent invention, for example as described above, are also provided.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features of this invention will be more readilyunderstood from the following detailed description of the variousaspects of the invention taken in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a flow chart diagram illustrating a process for allocatingcustomer service representatives in response to customer and servicerepresentative parameters according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a load-balancing algorithmic system orprocess according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 provides tabular illustrations of an application of aload-balancing algorithmic system or process according to the presentinvention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary computerizedimplementation of a system and method for allocating customer servicerepresentatives in response to customer and service representativeparameters according to the present invention

The drawings are not necessarily to scale The drawings are merelyschematic representations, not intended to portray specific parametersof the invention. The drawings are intended to depict only typicalembodiments of the invention, and therefore should not be considered aslimiting the scope of the invention. In the drawings, like numberingrepresents like elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

For convenience purposes, the Detailed Description of the Invention hasthe following sections: I. General Description; and II. ComputerizedImplementation.

I. General Description

FIG. 1 illustrates a process for allocating VU customer servicerepresentatives in response to customer, transaction and servicerepresentative parameters according to the present invention. At 102 acustomer avatar enters a VU store or other commercial provider region.If a store has available or unoccupied CSRs then one may be assigned tothe customer, the CSR's avatar generally greeting and engaging thecustomer (“Can I help you?”). However; if no human CSR's are available,the number of customer avatars in the store outnumber available CSR's orit is otherwise desirable to manage CSR avatar assignments thenaccording to the present invention at 104 a primary CSR avatar is clonedinto a subavatar and assigned to the customer by a store provider CSRallocation application operating on a computer system or otherprogrammable device as provided by the present invention.

The customer avatar interacts one-on-one with the cloned CSR subavatardedicated to that customer, which responds directly to the customeravatar. Avatars and subavatars may have divergent abilities andcapacities, thus the cloned subavatar may provide one or morecapabilities of an original or human-attended avatar, includingfollowing the customer to an item, manipulating the item and answeringspecific questions; or it may be restricted, for example in theirmovement (e.g. they may not leave the store) or sales authority (e.gthey may not sell an item at more than 20% discount). In one embodiment,three types of CSR Subavatar clones are provided; type-one is anautomated artificial agent not controlled by a human; type-two iscontrolled by a primary avatar salesperson, which is itself controlledby a human; and type-3 is jointly controlled by the human-controlledprimary avatar salesperson and the automated artificial agent, whereinsome routines are handled by the artificial agent.

In one advantage of the present invention, avatars or subavatars withdivergent performance characteristics may be selected and assigned tocustomers as a function of customer and/or store characteristics, needsor other parameters. For example, with respect to the type-1, type-2 andtype-3 subavatars described above, higher priority or need customers maybe assigned a human-monitored type-2 subavatar, whereas customers whoappear to be only browsing and not actively shopping may be assigned anautomated or bot type-1 Subavatar Accordingly, the process illustratedin FIG. 1 monitors and observes the current status and aspects of thebehavior of the customer as well as his avatar at 106, creates orupdates a customer profile in response to the observed status andbehavior and to any historical real-life or VU customer data stored andassociated with the customer at 108 and then deter mines preferentialsubavatar assignment parameter for the customer as a function of thecustomer profile at 110.

More particularly, at 110 the determined preferential subavatarassignment parameter is compared to the performance characteristics ofeach of the subavatars available for the store at 112, and one or moreof the subavatars having performance characteristics correlated to orotherwise meeting the determined preferential subavatar assignmentparameter is/are identified. If an appropriate CSR subavatar is notavailable at 112, then the customer is greeted (for example by anautomated greeter clone routine) and informed of a delay in service orasked to wait for a next available appropriate CSR subavatar at 114, thecustomer placed in a master store customer queue for the next availableappropriate subavatar assignment at 116. While in the master queue, thecustomer profile is continuously or periodically updated and thepreferential subavatar assignment parameter re-determined in response toeach profile update by looping back through the process steps106-108-110-112-114-116, wherein each iteration of attempting to matchthe customer with a preferred CSR subavatar assignment at 112 is afunction of a preferential subavatar assignment parameterre-determination at 110 This looping and updating enables recalculationof the preferential subavatar assignment parameter determination at 110and assignment at 112 responsive to changes in customer behavior orother parameters; for example, if a customer avatar indicates impatienceor begins to leave the store, or elapsed time in the master queuereaches one or more thresholds, the preferential subavatar assignmentparameter may be revised to reflect a higher priority or to enlarge theworld of possible CSR subavatar performance characteristics that maycorrelate to or otherwise meet said parameter, thereby improving theprobability of a successful assignment at 112; or the customer may bemoved up in the master queue at 116.

When an appropriate CSR subavatar is determined to be available at 112,then the customer is added to the queue for CSR subavatar at 118 and at120 the CSR subavatar assists or otherwise engages the customer avatar(and removes the customer from its queue). If a presently assigned CSRsubavatar cannot complete the present transaction at 122 (for example, atask is required that exceeds the capabilities of the present avatar, orany avatar) then the customer is reassigned at 124 to either anothermore-able CSR subavatar or directly to a human monitor in order toresolve the unmet need. In one example an automated CSR subavatar mayformulate replies to customer questions through a look-up to a knowledgebase for known or appropriate answers, wherein a human operator orcustomer service representative may be alerted or take over control ifthe customer's avatar asks to speak with a human, or if the customersappears to be unhappy, for example as determined through parsingcustomer text of spoken words or gestures and performing a knowledgebase look-up, or if the transaction reaches a certain point (for examplean endpoint is proximate), or if a human is now available.

When the transaction or interaction is deemed completed, at 126 a datatrace of the transaction is created and customer historical data isresponsively updated, the customer is released from the stoic customerqueue and the customer-specific cloned avatar is deleted.

In some embodiments one or more of the process steps 102 through 126illustrated in FIG. 1 and described above, and in particular customerprofile determination and preferential CSR subavatar assignment as afunction of customer profile may be accomplished through the use of oneor more load-balancing and/or queuing algorithms incorporating weightingand distribution methods. FIG. 2 illustrates one example of aload-balancing algorithmic system or process 200 comprising lour logiccomponents: a customer profiler 202, a persistence system component 204,a CSR avatar or human operator ability rater 206 and a potential revenuepredictor 208

The customer profiler system 202 is configured to rate customers onbuyer metrics and enable the provision of preferential customertreatment to higher priority or more profitable customers relative tolower priority customers. Such a system enables a business to maximizerevenue by providing expedited service to customers more likely tocomplete transactions or generate higher profits, as will be appreciatedto one skilled in the art of customer differentiation in retailenvironments. Thus, customer avatar characteristics may be observed orrated, for example behaviors relevant to a level of engagement in the VUexperience. Thus, item picking-up and manipulating activities maygenerate higher customer priority ratings relative to customersexhibiting passive activities such as standing in the corner

Priority ratings may be dynamically weighted or adjusted in response toreal-time customer avatar behaviors, such as determined through eachiteration of monitoring customer behavior at process 106 of FIG. 1.Thus, a priority rating or parameter factor may be adjusted upward forcomplaining customers as detected by parsing text or spoken voicecustomers communications. Higher priority may be given to avatarsactively engaged in conversation with other customer or friend avatars,particularly when discussing a store product; to customer avatarsleaving the store, with additional priority increases when the customerhas not yet been assisted; or to avatars showing certain knowncharacteristics as determined through comparison to one or moredatabases of known associated gestures or movements, for examplecharacteristics associated with impatience or annoyance, or with morelikely purchasing behaviors.

The customer profiler system 202 may also rate customers on avatarnavigation skills; for example smooth avatar body traversals indicatinga customer experienced in the VU may result in differentiated salestreatment over avatars evincing inexperienced or novice movements. Anavatar's inventory may also be considered and used to establish theircustomer profile, for example providing priority ratings in proportionto the value of inventory items In one embodiment, a linkage may beestablished between real-world and VU economic activity, for examplewherein a real-world customer purchase from the store provider or otherentity may automatically generate a token listed in the customer'savatar inventory available for consideration in rating the customer forservice or avatar assignment differentiation.

The customer profiler system 202 may also rate customers on historicaldata. Thus, the previous shopping history of the customer avatar may beconsidered, including last total purchase amount, total amount of allprevious purchases at the stole, highest single transaction amount,observations from other relevant transaction histories (e.g. similarproducts or services purchased from competitors, etc.), amount of timecustomer required fox help, and other useful metrics will be knownand/or apparent to one skilled in the art. Data may also be retrieved orstored in an avatar Customer Relationship Management (CRM) databasemaintained by the VU or the stole and associated with the customeravatar. As will be appreciated, any economic data deemed useful by thestore operator in evaluating customer ratings may be utilized, and thisdata may comprise single or aggregated data.

The customer profiler system 202 may also process metrics useful fordetermining a relative level of establishment of the customer's avatarwithin the VU, such as movement history across the VU (wherein a highernumber of teleports may indicate higher avatar experience and influenceratings), or avatar name search hit frequency (for example the number oftimes that a customer avatar name shows up as the results of a search inthe VU may correspond to a level of engagement within the VU community).Other useful metrics will also be apparent to one skilled in the art.

The customer profiler system 202 may also consider customer real-lifehistorical and contextual data. For example the real-life residence orlocation of the customer may be considered, with customers associatedwith a region having a preferred customer demographic given a higherpriority over customer avatars associated with other regions though anytype of geographic classification may be used. In one example, aretailer may choose to prefer the avatars of New York City residents dueto a higher historical purchasing amount patterns over other avatarsLocation can be determined by a variety of methods including IP addressor customer self description.

Notoriety or information known about the avatar or real-life personbehind the customer avatar may also be considered by the customerprofiler component 202. Avatars well known within their VU sometimesacquire corresponding market-making influence among other users, andthus it may be important to treat more notorious avatars withproportionately improved care or priority to maximize their satisfactionand improve their direct or indirect marketing of the store or otherpositive influences on other users. Alternatively, or additionally,although some customers remain anonymous behind their avatars, somecelebrities or other famous persons intentionally couple their real-lifeidentities to their avatars, in some aspects broadcasting their presencein the VU in furtherance of real-life name and/or brand awarenessbuilding for themselves or other associated entities. For example, somepolitical candidates and business figures have VU avatars directly tiedto their real-life persona, and thus their avatar actions benefit fromtheir real-life notoriety Some stores may thus opt to give suchreal-life or VU celebrity avatars preferential treatment by assigninghigher notoriety ratings in proportion to their perceived or determinednotoriety, perhaps not because of an expected increased likelihood ofshort term economic gain through an immediate sale but instead tocultivate long term economic benefits through establishing a goodrelationship with the famous person, who may influence other customersin the future in a positive fashion with respect to the store.

It will also be understood that customer ratings and weightings by thecustomer profiler component 202 may be a function of store needs orobjective: thus a store that prefers more experienced customers mayproportionately or positively increase priority rating in correspondencewith customer experience ratings, whereas a store that prefers customersnewer to the VU may inversely proportionately or negatively apply thesame customer experience ratings

The persistence system component 204 uses historical data to match up acustomer avatar with appropriate CSR subavatars. History data, such asfor example sales history, may be associated with the customer avatarUUID and stored in a data store, such as for example a customer CRMSales history may be used to focus conversation with the customer: for aprevious customer a CSR subavatar may initiate communication with“Welcome back, Steve” rather than “Welcome to my stole.” CSR subavatarconversation may also reflect application of recommendation logicaccording to sales or browsing history, including through a link toback-end recommendation systems or algorithms, in some embodiments in afashion similar to the recommendations generated and presented tocustomers by some on-line retailers.

Accordingly, it is preferred to track and save every distinctinteraction window between a customer avatar and a CSR subavatar and logassociated data, for example as reflected by process step 126 aboveInteraction data including an attending CSR subavatar when the customerlast left the stoic and/or purchased an item may then be used to rankCSR subavatars for association with that customer, for exampleprioritizing CSR's subavatars they have worked with previously, in someembodiments providing additional weighting (for example favoring a CSRsubavatar associated with successful purchase data or disfavoring a CSRsubavatar associated with a “no-sales” transactions). By tanking CSRsubavatars rather than selecting only the most preferred, somepersistence system components 204 may propose the next-highest-rankedavailable subavatar as a function of availability.

The operator ability rater 206 is configured to select, prioritize orrank CSR subavatars as a function of subavatar or operator capabilities.Thus, a human-operator CSR subavatar whose interactions havehistorically resulted in more transactions may be rated as able tomanage more customers than another human operator with less associatedtransactions. Or a CSR subavatar who has recorded more sales in a firstregion of a VU store than in another region may be ranked as more ableto help more customers in said first store region than anothersubavatar. Interaction response times may be considered: thus a CSRsubavatar that takes longer than others to respond to customers may beranked accordingly, in one example as able to service a lower number ofconcurrent customers relative to CSR subavatars having better responsetimes.

The potential revenue predictor 208 ranks or prioritizes customersand/or CSR subavatars as a function of revenue parameters andobservations. Thus, a customer avatar in a store region containinghigher profit items may have its priority or preferential rankingsincreased relative to customers in regions having relatively lowerprofit items. Or an expected time-of-service for a given customer may bedetermined as a function of predicted required transaction times, whichmay be further parsed with respect to transaction complexity (forexample, providing divergent complex and simple purchase parameters andweightings). Transaction time may be determined in a number of ways,including by observing and recording the durations of previouspurchasing interactions. Embodiments may also provide for additional ordifferent functional weightings; for example giving preferentialweighting to sales with a higher margin, or to items that result in morerevenue, or to a mixture of revenue and margin weighting along oradditional available business metrics.

FIG. 3 provides a plurality of tabular illustrations of an applicationof the load balancing algorithm system 200. Table A reflects customerrating generated by a customer profiler component 202 in response tocustomer historical data. A value of four is selected from a possiblerange of from one to ten in response to processing customers notorietydata, and weighted by 0.6 to generate a weighted notoriety factor of2.4. Previous purchases data determined from economic transactionhistory of the customer or his avatar of between $1,000 and $5,000results in a previous purchases rating of two which is weighted by 0.4to generate a weighted previous purchases factor of 0.8. And thereal-life location of the customer is determined to be within a firstpreferred region and assigned a one rating (rather than the zeroassigned to other customer residing in a second non-preferred region),which is weighted by 0.2 to generate a preferred location factor of 0.2Each of the factors is summed to arrive at a total customer historicaldata rating factor of 3.4

Table B illustrates a customer profiler component 202 rating of thecustomer's current avatar behavior and characteristics with respect tothree of the characteristics described above, which in some examples maybe determined in response to monitoring the avatar at process 106 ofFIG. 1. Thus, the customer's engagement in shopping is rated between oneand ten as six, weighted by 0.3 to produce a weighted shoppingengagement factor of 1.8. The customer avatar's smoothness of movementis rated “two” and weighted by 0.4 to produce a weighted smoothness ofmovement factor of 0.8 And a search of the VU for references to theavatar's name returns over fifty hits and is thus rated as three, whichis weighted by 0.1 to produce a weighted avatar name search hitfrequency factor of 0.3. Each of the factors is summed to arrive at atotal real-time data customer rating factor of 2.9. In one embodimentthe Table A historical rating factor (3.4) is added to the Table Breal-time data rating factor (2.9) to generate a total customer priorityrating of 6.3. In other embodiments, further weighting or balancing maybe practiced: for example, one or both of the Table A historical ratingfactor or the Table B real-time rating factor may be further weightedprior to the combining to determine the total customer priority rating

Table C illustrates a potential revenue predictor 208 rating of thecurrent customer transaction; a likely dollar value of the presenttransaction is determined to be $20,000.00, and a transaction complexityfactor of four is selected from a possible range of from one to ten.Table D illustrates the rating of a particular CSR subavatar by the CSRrater component 206 The present CSR subavatar is rated to handle amaximum of five customers at once. The maximum allowable transactioncomplexity factor is six; thus customers having higher complexityratings would be assigned instead to other more able or senior CSRsubavatars. The maximum customer rating is four: relatively moleimportant customers, such as the customer rated above with a priorityrating of 6.3, will not be assigned to this CSR subavatar. The CSRsubavatar's historical average customer service time is four minutes:this may be considered in priority ranking for assignment to a givencustomer, or for eliminating some complex transaction assignments, or inother processes. And lastly the current number of customers being servedby the rated CSR subavatar is monitored, presently two since this CSRsubavatar is rated for a maximum of five, this CSR subavatar can acceptthree more new customers.

Table E reflects application of the factors and ratings of Tables Athrough D in evaluating a transaction and preferentially assigning a CSRsubavatar to the rated customer; for example at process 112 describedabove. Thus, at E1 (Table E) a store provider CSR allocation applicationmonitors each available CSR subavatar for number of currently assignedcustomers to ensure that they do not exceed their rated simultaneouscustomer limits, and at E2 (Table E) further that current customer andtransaction factors do not also exceed any other applicable factormaximums

At E3 (Table E) the allocation application determines whether any CSRsubavatar's appropriate for the customer and transaction rankings areavailable (for example, see the process off FIG. 1 at 112 above). TI notand a CSR subavatar appropriate for the customer and transactionrankings is not available before the elapse of an X minutes threshold,then the customer is assigned to a lesser-qualified CSR subavatar, thusone that may not have qualified under the current preferential CSRsubavatar assignment ratings and factors prior to elapse of thethreshold.

At E4 (Table E) if more than one CSR subavatar qualifies for a customerpreferential subavatar assignment parameter and the present transactionTanking then a most-preferable or most appropriate one of the pluralityof qualified CSR subavatar's is selected and the customer is queued tothat CSR subavatar. For example, if a first available CSR subavatar ishelping three high priority customers and a second CSR subavatar ishelping seven low priority customers, and neither are over their ratedcustomer limits, and a new customer is rated as a low priority customer,then the new low-priority customer is most preferably assigned to thesecond CSR subavatar in order to allow the first CSR to focus on thehigher priority customers.

At E5 (Table E) service is rendered to the customer by a CSR subavatarand the customer is removed from the CSR subavatar's queue And if noappropriate CSR subavatar's are available (for example, due to maximumsimultaneous customer load or transaction complexity load or acombination there of), then the customer is assigned to the master queueat process 116 until either an appropriate CSR subavatar becomesavailable, perhaps due to re-computation of available CSR subavatar'sthrough looping through steps 106-108-110, for example as describedabove. In some embodiments elapsing of a maximum master queue timecauses the load-balancing algorithm to re-rate the customer forlesser-rated or formerly inappropriate CSR subavatars.

II Computerized Implementation

The present invention may be implemented within a stand-alone VUapplication, or as a plug-in to an existing VU application Referring nowto FIG. 4, an exemplary computerized implementation includes a computersystem 404 deployed within a computer infrastructure 408 such as acomputer or a programmable device such as a personal digital assistant(PDA) or cellular phone. This is intended to demonstrate, among otherthings, that the present invention could be implemented within a networkenvironment 440 (e.g., the Internet, a wide area network (WAN), a localarea network (LAN), a virtual private network (VPN), etc.) incommunication with one or more additional computers 436, or on astand-alone computer infrastructure 408. In the case of the former,communication throughout the network 440 can occur via any combinationof various types of communication links. For example, the communicationlinks can comprise addressable connections that may utilize anycombination of wired and/or wireless transmission methods. Wherecommunications occur via the Internet, connectivity could be provided byconventional TCP/IP sockets-based protocol, and an Internet serviceprovider could be used to establish connectivity to the Internet.

As shown, the computer system 404 includes a central processing unit(CPU) 412, a memory 416, a bus 420, and input/output (I/O) interfaces424. Further, the computer system 404 is shown in communication withexternal I/O devices/resources 428 and storage system 432. In general,the processing unit 412 executes computer program code, such as the codeto implement various components of the process and system for allocatingVU customer service representatives in response to customer, transactionand service representative parameters illustrated in FIGS. 1, 2 and 3and described above, including customer profiler 202, persistence systemcomponent 204, CSR avatar or human operator ability rater 206 andpotential revenue predictor 208 components discussed above, which arestored in memory 416 and/or storage system 432. It is to be appreciatedthat two or more, including all, of these components may be implementedas a single component.

While executing computer program code, the processing unit 412 can readand/or write data to/from the memory 416, the storage system 432, and/orthe I/O interfaces 424. The bus 420 provides a communication linkbetween each of the components in computer system 404. The externaldevices 428 can comprise any devices (e.g., keyboard, pointing device,display, etc.) that enable a user to interact with computer system 404and/or any devices (e.g., network card, modem, etc) that enable computersystem 404 to communicate with one or more other computing devices.

The computer infrastructure 408 is only illustrative of various types ofcomputer infrastructures for implementing the invention. For example, inone embodiment, computer infrastructure 408 comprises two or morecomputing devices (e.g., a server cluster) that communicate over anetwork to perform the various process steps of the invention. Moreover,computer system 404 is only representative of various possible computersystems that can include numerous combinations of hardware.

To this extent, in other embodiments, the computer system 404 cancomprise any specific purpose-computing article of manufacturecomprising hardware and/or computer program code for performing specificfunctions, any computing article of manufacture that comprises acombination of specific purpose and general-purpose hardware/software,or the like. In each case, the program code and hardware can be createdusing standard programming and engineering techniques, respectively.Moreover, the processing unit 412 may comprise a single processing unit,or be distributed across one or more processing units in one or morelocations, e.g., on a client and server. Similarly, the memory 416and/or the storage system 432 can comprise any combination of varioustypes of data storage and/or transmission media that reside at one ormore physical locations.

Further, I/O interfaces 424 can comprise any system for exchanginginformation with one or mole of the external device 428 Still further,it is understood that one or more additional components (e.g., systemsoftware, math co-processing unit, etc) not shown in FIG. 4 can beincluded in computer system 404. However, if computer system 404comprises a handheld device or the like, it is understood that one ormore of the external devices 428 (e.g., a display) and/or the storagesystem 432 could be contained within computer system 404, not externallyas shown.

The storage system 432 can be any type of system (e.g., a database)capable of providing storage for information under the presentinvention. To this extent, the storage system 432 could include one ormore storage devices, such as a magnetic disk drive or an optical diskdrive. In another embodiment, the storage system 432 includes datadistributed across, for example, a local area network (LAN), wide areanetwork (WAN) or a storage area network (SAN) (not shown). In addition,although not shown, additional components, such as cache memory,communication systems, system software, etc., may be incorporated intocomputer system 404.

While shown and described herein as a method and a system, it isunderstood that the invention further provides various alternativeembodiments. For example, in one embodiment, the invention provides acomputer-readable/useable medium that includes computer program code toenable a computer infrastructure to allocate VU customer servicerepresentatives in response to customer, transaction and servicerepresentative parameters. To this extent, the computer-readable/useablemedium includes program code that implements each of the various processsteps of the invention.

It is understood that the terms “computer-readable medium” or “computeruseable medium” comprise one or more of any type of physical embodimentof the program code. In particular, the computer-readable/useable mediumcan comprise program code embodied on one of more portable storagearticles of manufacture (e.g., a compact disc, a magnetic disk, a tape,etc), on one or more data storage portions of a computing device, suchas the memory 416 and/or the storage system 432 (e.g., a fixed disk, aread-only memory, a random access memory, a cache memory, etc), and/oras a data signal (e.g., a propagated signal) traveling over a network(e.g., during a wired/wireless electronic distribution of the programcode).

Still yet, computer infrastructure 408 is intended to demonstrate thatsome or all of the components of implementation could be deployed,managed, serviced, etc. by a service provider who offers to implement,deploy, and/or perform the functions of the present invention forothers, for example by licensing methods and browser or applicationserver technology according to the present invention to an internetservice providers (ISP) or cellular telephone provider. In oneembodiment, the invention may comprise a business method that performsthe process steps of the invention on a subscription, advertising,and/or fee basis. Thus, a service provider can create, maintain,support, etc, a computer infrastructure, such as the computerinfrastructure 408 that performs the process steps of the invention forone or more customers, and in return the service provider can receivepayment from the customer(s) under a subscription and/or fee agreementand/or the service provider can receive payment from the sale ofadvertising content to one or more third parties.

In still another embodiment, the invention provides acomputer-implemented method for allocating VU customer servicerepresentatives in response to customer, transaction and servicerepresentative parameters. In this case, a computer infrastructure, suchas computer infrastructure 408, can be provided and one or more systemsfor performing the process steps of the invention can be obtained (e.g.,created, purchased, used, modified, etc) and deployed to the computerinfrastructure. To this extent, the deployment of a system can compriseone or more of: (1) installing program code on a computing device, suchas computer system 404, from a computer-readable medium; (2) adding oneor more computing devices to the computer infrastructure; and (3)incorporating and/or modifying one or more existing systems of thecomputer infrastructure to enable the computer infrastructure to performthe process steps of the invention.

As used herein, it is understood that the terms “program code” and“computer program code” are synonymous and mean any expression, in anylanguage, code or notation, of a set of instructions intended to cause acomputing device having an information processing capability to performa particular function either directly or after either or both of thefollowing: (a) conversion to another language, code or notation; and/or(b) reproduction in a different material form. To this extent, programcode can be embodied as one or more of: an application/software program,component software/a library of functions, an operating system, a basicI/O system/driver for a particular computing and/or I/O device, and thelike.

The foregoing description of various aspects of the invention has beenpresented for purposes of illustration and description It is notintended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise formdisclosed, and obviously, many modifications and variations are possibleSuch modifications and variations that may be apparent to a per sonskilled in the art are intended to be included within the scope of theinvention as defined by the accompanying claims.

1. A method for allocating customer service representatives in a virtualuniverse, comprising: defining a virtual universe store comprising anoriginal customer service representative avatar, the store configured toprovide a plurality of subavatars, each of the subavatars having acapability of the original avatar and a divergent performancecharacteristic; in response to a customer avatar entering the virtualuniverse store and an unavailability of the original customer servicerepresentative avatar, cloning the original customer servicerepresentative avatar and assigning the clone to the customer avatar;observing a behavior of the customer avatar; retrieving historicalcustomer data from a data store; creating a customer profile from theobserved behavior and the retrieved historical customer data;determining a preferential subavatar assignment parameter for thecustomer avatar as a function of the customer profile; choosing asubavatar from the plurality of subavatars as a function of acorrelation of the performance characteristic of the chosen subavatarwith the preferential subavatar assignment parameter and a storeobjective; populating the assigned clone with the chosen subavatar; andthe populated clone engaging the customer avatar
 2. The method of claim1, wherein choosing the subavatar comprises: preferentially rating eachof the plurality of subavatars; determining an appropriateness thresholdas a function of the preferential subavatar assignment parameter, thesubavatar performance characteristics and the store objective;determining whether at least one of the subavatars meets theappropriateness threshold and is available; and choosing a highest-ratedavailable subavatar of the at least one available subavatars meeting theappropriateness threshold; or if no rated subavatars meet theappropriateness threshold and are available, the clone greeting thecustomer avatar and informing the customer avatar of a delay in service,and adding the customer to a master queue until any of the ratedsubavatars meet the appropriateness threshold or a revised threshold andare available.
 3. The method of claim 2, further comprising setting therevised threshold to qualify an available subavatar rated below theappropriateness threshold for choosing in response to the customerresiding in the master queue longer than a maximum time-in-queue time.4. The method of claim 2, further comprising: setting the revisedthreshold by looping repetitively through the observing the customeravatar behavior, the retrieving historical customer data, the creatingthe customer profile, the determining the preferential subavatarassignment parameter, and the preferentially rating the subavatars;determining the revised threshold with each loop; and choosing ahighest-rated available subavatar of the at least one availablesubavatars meeting the revised threshold and available until at leastone of the rated subavatars meets the revised threshold.
 5. The methodof claim 4, wherein the plurality of subavatars comprise: a first-typeautomated subavatar; a second-type primary subavatar controlled by theoriginal customer service representative avatar, wherein the originalcustomer service representative avatar is controlled by a human; and athird-type jointly-controlled subavatar controlled by the originalcustomer service representative avatar and the first-type automatedsubavatar, wherein at least one third-type jointly-controlled subavatarroutine is controlled by the first-type automated subavatar; and whereinthe performance characteristic of the chosen subavatar comprises anidentification of subavatar type
 6. The method of claim 5, whereindetermining whether at least one of the subavatars meets theappropriateness threshold and is available is a function of a predictedtransaction complexity factor or a predicted transaction revenue value.7. The method of claim 6, wherein: observing the behavior of thecustomer avatar comprises at least one of parsing a customercommunication, observing avatar movement relative to a store region, andidentifying a movement meaning or movement quality through comparison toa database of known movement meanings or known movement qualities; anddetermining the preferential subavatar assignment parameter comprisesadjusting a customer priority rating upward or downward as a function ofat least one of the parsed customer communication, the observed relativestore region avatar movement, the identified movement, and the movementquality
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein creating the customer profilefrom the observed behavior and the retrieved historical customer data isa function of at least one of: sales history data associated with thecustomer avatar or a user of the customer avatar; an inventory of thecustomer avatar; a level of establishment of the user or the customeravatar within the virtual universe; a real-life residence of the user;and a notoriety of the user or the customer avatar
 9. A service foxallocating customer service representatives in a virtual universe,comprising: providing a computer infrastructure configured to: inresponse to a customer avatar entering a virtual universe store and anunavailability of an original customer service representative avatar,clone the original customer service representative avatar and assign theclone to the customer avatar, wherein the virtual universe storecomprises an original customer service representative avatar and aplurality of subavatars, each of the subavatars having a capability ofthe original avatar and a diver gent performance characteristic; observea behavior of the customer avatar; retrieve historical customer datafrom a data store; create a customer profile from the observed behaviorand the retrieved historical customer data; determine a preferentialsubavatar assignment parameter for the customer as a function of thecustomer profile; choose a subavatar from the plurality of subavatars asa function of a correlation of the performance characteristic of thechosen subavatar with the preferential subavatar assignment parameterand a store objective; and populate the assigned clone with the chosensubavatar
 10. The service of claim 9, wherein choosing the subavatarcomprises: preferentially rating each of the plurality of subavatars;determining an appropriateness threshold as a function of thepreferential subavatar assignment parameter; the subavatar performancecharacteristics and the store objective; determining whether at leastone of the subavatars meets the appropriateness threshold and isavailable; and choosing a highest-rated available subavatar of the atleast one available subavatars meeting the appropriateness threshold; orif no rated subavatars meet the appropriateness threshold and areavailable, the clone greeting the customer avatar and informing thecustomer avatar of a delay in service, and adding the customer to amaster queue until any of the rated subavatars meet the appropriatenessthreshold or a revised threshold and are available.
 11. The service ofclaim 10, the computer infrastructure further configured to set therevised threshold to qualify an available subavatar rated below theappropriateness threshold for choosing in response to the customerresiding in the master queue longer than a maximum time-in-queue time.12. The service of claim 10, the computer infrastructure furtherconfigured to set the revised threshold by: looping repetitively throughthe observing the customer avatar behavior, the retrieving historicalcustomer data, the creating the customer profiler the determining thepreferential subavatar assignment parameter, and the preferentiallyrating the subavatars; determining the revised threshold with each loop;and choosing a highest-rated available subavatar of the at least oneavailable subavatars meeting the revised threshold and available untilat least one of the rated subavatars meets the revised threshold. 13.The service of claim 12, the computer infrastructure configured todetermine whether at least one of the subavatars meets theappropriateness threshold and is available as a function of a predictedtransaction complexity factor or a predicted transaction revenue value14. The service of claim 13, the computer infrastructure configured to:observe the behavior of the customer avatar by at least one of: parsinga customer communication, observing avatar movement relative to a storeregion, and identifying a movement meaning or movement quality throughcomparison to a database of known movement meanings or known movementqualities; and determine the preferential subavatar assignment parameterby adjusting a customer priority rating upward or downward as a functionof at least one of the parsed customer communication, the observedrelative store region avatar movement, the identified movement, and themovement quality.
 15. The service of claim 14, the computerinfrastructure configured to create the customer profile from theobserved behavior and the retrieved historical customer data as afunction of at least one of: sales history data associated with thecustomer avatar or a user of the customer avatar; an inventory of thecustomer avatar; a level of establishment of the user or the customeravatar within the virtual universe; a real-life residence of the user;and a notoriety of the user or the customer avatar.
 16. A method forallocating customer service representatives in a virtual universe,comprising: producing computer executable program code; storing the codeon a computer readable medium; and providing the program code to bedeployed and executed on a computer system, the program code comprisinginstructions which, when executed on the computer system, cause thecomputer system to: in response to a customer avatar entering a virtualuniverse store and an unavailability of an original customer servicerepresentative avatar, clone the original customer servicerepresentative avatar and assign the clone to the customer avatar,wherein the virtual universe store comprises an original customerservice representative avatar and a plurality of subavatars, each of thesubavatars having a capability of the original avatar and a divergentperformance characteristic; observe a behavior of the customer avatar;retrieve historical customer data from a data store; create a customerprofile from the observed behavior and the retrieved historical customerdata; determine a preferential subavatar assignment parameter for thecustomer as a function of the customer profile; choose a subavatar fromthe plurality of subavatars as a function of a correlation of theperformance characteristic of the chosen subavatar with preferentialsubavatar assignment parameter; and populate the assigned clone with thechosen subavatar.
 17. The method of claim 16, wherein choosing thesubavatar comprises: preferentially rating each of the plurality ofsubavatars; determining an appropriateness threshold as a function ofthe preferential subavatar assignment parameter, the subavatarperformance characteristics and the store objective; determining whetherat least one of the subavatars meets the appropriateness threshold andis available; and choosing a highest-rated available subavatar of the atleast one available subavatars meeting the appropriateness threshold; orif no rated subavatars meet the appropriateness threshold and areavailable, the clone greeting the customer avatar and informing thecustomer avatar of a delay in service, and adding the customer to amaster queue until any of the rated subavatars meet the appropriatenessthreshold or a revised threshold and are available.
 18. The method ofclaim 17, the program code comprising instructions which, when executedon the computer system, causes the computer system to set the revisedthreshold by: looping repetitively through the observing the customeravatar behavior, the retrieving historical customer data, the creatingthe customer profile, the determining the preferential subavatarassignment parameter, and the preferentially rating the subavatars;determining the revised threshold with each loop and choosing ahighest-rated available subavatar of the at least one availablesubavatars meeting the revised threshold and available until at leastone of the rated subavatars meets the revised threshold.
 19. The methodof claim 18, the program code comprising instructions which, whenexecuted on the computer system, causes the computer system to: observethe behavior of the customer avatar by at least one of parsing acustomer communication, observing avatar movement relative to a storeregion, and identifying a movement meaning or movement quality throughcomparison to a database of known movement meanings or known movementqualities; and determine the preferential subavatar assignment parameterby adjusting a customer priority rating upward or downward as a functionof at least one of the parsed customer communication, the observedrelative store region avatar movement, the identified movement, and themovement quality
 20. The method of claim 19, the program code comprisinginstructions which, when executed on the computer system, causes thecomputer system to create the customer profile from the observedbehavior and the retrieved historical customer data as a function of atleast one of: sales history data associated with the customer avatar ora user of the customer avatar; an inventory of the customer avatar; alevel of establishment of the customer avatar or the user within thevirtual universe; a real-life residence of the user; and a notoriety ofthe user or the customer avatar
 21. A programmable device comprising: aprocessing means; a memory in communication with the processing meanscomprising a customer profiler component, a persistence systemcomponent, an operator ability rater component and a potential revenuepredictor component; and a network interface in communication with theprocessing means and the memory; wherein the processing means isconfigured to: in response to a customer avatar entering a virtualuniverse store and an unavailability of an original customer servicerepresentative avatar, clone the original customer servicerepresentative avatar and assign the clone to the customer avatar,wherein the virtual universe store comprises an original customerservice representative avatar and a plurality of subavatars, each of thesubavatars having a capability of the original avatar and a divergentperformance characteristic; observe a behavior of the customer avatar;retrieve historical customer data from a data store; create a customerprofile from the observed behavior and the retrieved historical customerdata; determine a preferential subavatar assignment parameter for thecustomer as a function of the customer profile; choose a subavatar fromthe plurality of subavatars as a function of a correlation of theperformance characteristic of the chosen subavatar with the preferentialsubavatar assignment parameter and a store objective; and populate theassigned clone with the chosen subavatar.
 22. The programmable device ofclaim 21, wherein the plurality of subavatars comprises: a first-typeautomated subavatar; a second-type primary subavatar configured to becontrolled by the original customer service representative avatar,wherein the original customer service representative avatar iscontrolled by a human; and a third-type jointly-controlled subavatarconfigured to be controlled by the original customer servicerepresentative avatar and the first-type automated subavatar, wherein atleast one third-type jointly-controlled subavatar routine is controlledby the first-type automated subavatar; and wherein the performancecharacteristic of the chosen subavatar comprises an identification ofsubavatar type.
 23. The programmable device of claim 21, wherein theprocessing means is configured to: observe the behavior of the customeravatar by at least one of: parsing a customer communication, observingavatar movement relative to a store region, and identifying a movementmeaning or movement quality through comparison to a database of knownmovement meanings or known movement qualities; and determine thepreferential subavatar assignment parameter by adjusting a customerpriority rating upward or downward as a function of at least one of theparsed customer communication, the observed relative store region avatarmovement, the identified movement, and the movement quality.
 24. Theprogrammable device of claim 23, wherein the processing means isconfigured to create the customer profile from the observed behavior andthe retrieved historical customer data as a function of at least one of:sales history data associated with the customer or a user of thecustomer avatar; an inventory of the customer avatar; a level ofestablishment of the customer avatar or the user within the virtualuniverse; a real-life residence of the user; and a notoriety of the useror the customer avatar.